Were-Devils' Revenge [Were-Devils of Tasmania 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (14 page)

Tilman smiled. “And you say that your grandmother was worried that wasn’t enough?”

Gabriella nodded.

“Well, luckily your great-uncle wasn’t a physician,” said Tilman. “Children have a much smaller body weight so would never need a full adult dose.”

Angel would be relieved.

“And three years old would be the perfect if not optimal time to ensure that immunity was life long and potentially transferred to her children.”

“So could my blood help then?” Gabriella asked.

Tilman rubbed his chin again. “I haven’t been able to test the theory that ghosts’ blood is different,” he said. “So your blood would be very helpful for that. Becc’s ultimately was a human response, and we know from my response that were-devils can tolerate and respond to human blood immune elements, but ghost? I don’t know.”

Gabriella started to roll up her sleeve.

Tilman had reconstructed his university lab in the Mortimer’s garage. He worked late into the night, the family all waiting impatiently. No one said it, but they knew Melody didn’t have much longer.

Just before midnight, Tilman emerged with Jesse, looking excited.

“There is an attachment on your SMB!” he announced.

Gabriella looked at him blankly and then at Mac and Mitch. They were as mystified as her.

“SMB is the immune marker,” Becc whispered to them. “It was higher in my blood than Tilman’s and seems to be what the body needs to get the white cells to respond to the infection and then to recognise the cancer cells as being alien.”

“What does the attachment mean?” Mac asked.

“I can’t be sure,” Tilman replied. “But given Gabriella is ghost and the virus was designed to harm us not them, I’d lay bets that it is what ensures the immune response gets triggered early.”

“What’s the next step then?” Melody’s mother’s voice was tremulous.

“I give it to Melody as soon as I’ve separated it.”

“How long?” this was Melody’s voice. She was standing in the doorway in her night attire, holding Curt, her fiancé, for support.

“Now,” said Jarrod, coming in the back door. He held up a tube, and as they injected it into Melody, Gabriella was holding a hand of each of her men as everyone in the room silently prayed.

No one slept well, Melody least of all. They took it in turns to do shifts with her, wiping the sweat off her as she writhed in the bed, feverish and riddled with bad dreams, crying out as it seemed the disease or perhaps the attempted cure, fought for dominance.

She seemed worse the next morning, and her blood had shown no changes.

“I can’t bear the thought of losing her,” said her mother, and Mac and Mitch clearly felt just the same, though they were attempting to be stoic and a support for both their parents.

She can’t die
Gabriella wanted to scream. Surely, surely her own love for the Mortimer boys had had a deeper meaning and that this was it. Her blood mixed with the were-devils, righting the wrongs of the past. Surely there hadn’t been a mistake. Fate could be so cruel to have meant it to be Lena as her grandmother had always believed.

Gabriella slept restlessly the next night, but when she did, a woman in white haunted her dreams, a woman very like her grandmother but much younger and sweet, girlish in a way she couldn’t ever imagine Angel having been. When she woke, she at first couldn’t remember the details, and then it flooded her. The woman had said, “Thank you.” Gabriella slipped out of bed, leaving her two men asleep, and tiptoed to Melody’s room. Curt was asleep, head at an awkward angle, in the chair.

She stood in the doorway, hesitating when the eiderdown stirred and Melody sat up, eyes locking.

“She said sorry to me,” Melody said simply.

Gabriella stared and wondered how she knew Melody had dreamt of the same woman.

“How do you feel?” Gabriella whispered.

Melody sat very still and then smiled slowly. “Absolutely sensational. What’s for breakfast? I’m starving.”

* * * *

Hobart, Present Day

Kate felt it first in the wind. The slightest of movements, a brush across her face that spoke of other times and places. But it was so faint it left no imprint, no hint at the deeper meaning as it vanished.

But later that night, as she was stoking the fire, still needed even though it was spring, she saw the sign in the flames and stared into the coal for a few moments. There was a shift, the second in the last week.

“The curse,” her mother had told her, “was a result of a love denied, and a child left. To rid themselves of the curse the were-devils must learn about the power of love.”

“And love will be enough?” a much younger Kate had asked.

Her mother had taken her stones and read them time and time again. The answer was always the same. The solution to the were-devils’ curse turned up seven stones, four of the black-and-yellow devil stones and three opaque ghost stones.

Now, over a half century later Kate asked the same question, and stared at the stones before her. Two black-and-yellow stones for the Tremain brothers and two for the Mortimer brothers. One ghost stone for Becc whose blood would rid the were-devils of the curse and one for Gabriella. But there was still one ghost stone, and over this Kate’s hands lingered, knowing that it was the power of the final stone that was critical. In her hand it burned and glowered, still un-played. She returned it back to the pile in front of her, wondering.

The flames in the fireplace flickered, and in the coals Kate saw the possibilities and wondered if she would be the one to see the end.

THE END

WWW.SIMONESINNA.COM

The Tasmanian devil or Sarcophilus harrisii (Tarrab[ah] or Poirinnah by the Indigenous people) is the largest surviving carnivorous marsupial, only found in Tasmania, the island state of Australia. It is currently being ravaged by a devastating disease, the contagious devil facial tumor, and is now an endangered species.

The Ghost Bat or False Vampire is almost white in color, found in the far north of Queensland, a northern state of Australia. It is a large, carnivorous bat thought once to feed on blood. It is listed as a threatened species because of mining taking over its rocky habitat. It has never been found in Tasmania to my knowledge.

The Hendra virus is a fatal virus that can be transmitted from bats to horses and humans.

Simone Sinna is a pseudonym. Since walking over 1,600 miles on the Camino de Santiago in 2011, the author has worked half-time as a writer, or at least when she isn’t walking (this year was the Coast to Coast in England) or traveling. Her husband is also an author, and they spend long weekends in the country together writing. She is currently writing a mainstream love story set on the Camino, as well as the final of the four Were-Devils books.

For all titles by Simone Sinna, please visit

www.bookstrand.com/simone-sinna

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com